Women misdiagnosing illnesses from internet

13th August 2012

A quarter of women in Britain are misdiagnosing their illnesses and buying the wrong medicine to treat themselves by searching on the internet, according to Dr Sean Cummings.

Dr Cummings writes in the Daily Mail that the results of a recent survey showed: "searching for symptoms online and self-medicating led to one in ten women enduring unpleasant side effects as a result of misdiagnosis. Half of the women surveyed diagnosed themselves online, then bought a treatment on the high street without checking with a pharmacist if it was the correct product. A fifth had at some time wrongly suspected they had a serious disease."